


The Garden at Rue Plumet

by SkyH



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Era, Convent Husbands, Fauchelevent Lives, Gardens & Gardening, Non-Canonical Character Survival, Paris Era, you get the point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2019-01-16 05:33:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12336471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyH/pseuds/SkyH
Summary: Valjean, Fauchelevent, and Cosette move out, move in, and plant a garden.For the prompt 'Fix-It AU where Fauchelevent doesn't die before Valjean and Cosette leave the convent, and they leave anyway at some other point and continue living together.'





	The Garden at Rue Plumet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anacrea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anacrea/gifts).



“Perhaps,” said Madeline, looking through the window at the apple trees, “it is time for us to move on.”

Fauchelevent turned to him, leaning forwards slightly, but leaving the quiet as an invitation to keep talking. Madeline sat still for several seconds more, a golden late-afternoon sunbeam falling onto his hair and creating the appearance, Fauchelevent thought, of a halo.

“Cosette is young;” he said eventually. “she has never truly known life outside the convent — a few forgotten years as a babe, and some time before God dropped us in your melon-bed — but not long enough to truly know the world.”

Fauchelevent did not ask what Cosette’s life had been before Father Madeline had arrived to spirit her away.

“Furthermore,” Madeline continued, “her education is almost complete. There is no reason she must stay.

“She must be granted the choice between here and there, outside the walls or hidden — cloistered, if you will — an Eden of suffering and devotion, or an Earth with its own joys and its own light and its own trials. To choose, she must have knowledge of both.”

“That’s so.”

“And so, we must leave.”

“Where to?”

“I have money, we shall find a house.”

“Ah, and the nuns must believe we got the money from somewhere!” Fauchelevent would have believed it without a second thought had Madeline claimed the money had come from nowhere, had he not already known of his industrial endeavours, but the nuns would likely be more sceptical.

“The nuns will think a relativehas died—“

“—a cousin—“

“—a cousin; they shall believe the two of us have come into possession of a large inheritance, of which they shall receive some as a matter of courtesy, and to pay for the education of Cosette.”

“A thank-you, and to sweeten the deal somewhat. Very good.”

“And since you have been ill for so long—“

“—and am only just recovering, I am currently of no use to them. Or rather, I am no longer fit to work as a gardener; I have become too old. Why,” Fauchelevent added, almost as an afterthought, “it is lucky I am not as dead as our cousin!”

 

* * *

One week later, Cosette, Fauchelevent, and Valjean left the convent. Shortly after that, Valjean announced he had found a house, and three weeks after that, once he had judged the place to be adequately repaired, they moved from the small room they had been renting to the house at number 55 Rue Plumet. This house had been chosen for its secluded nature, being the only inhabited building on its street, with a long, overgrown front garden shielding the front windows from the street.

Valjean had planned to live in the porter’s hut out in the back garden, but, after enduring the combined protests of Cosette and Fauchelevent, had acquiesced to their demands and joined them in the large house. The porter’s hut was left unused, except to store various odds and ends left over from their time at the convent, and the valise Valjean had taken with him since first arriving in Paris.

 

* * *

 

It was spring, and the uncultivated thickets in the front garden were adorned with bright green leaf-buds. Cosette often awoke to find rivulets of raindrops still running down her window, and the ground outside freshly damp after rainfall in the night. In the afternoons, when the day was warmest, Fauchelevent had taken to sitting outside for an hour or so, and Madeline had had to begin trimming back the ivy covering the walls, lest it obscure the windows. 

 

Fauchelevent sat in his armchair, watching a bird fluttering into the garden, picking up a stick longer than its wingspan, and flying off again to some undisclosed location — a tree somewhere, or perhaps a chimney on the rooftop of one of the abandoned houses in the Rue Plumet. Cosette was outside somewhere, most likely overturning stones and logs in search of centipedes, woodlice, and other creepy-crawlies.

He had begun to miss his time as a gardener. It was nice, he supposed, to not have to spend hours hunched over a vegetable bed each day; certainly, his back and joints thanked him for it. However, the brambles by the front gate could do with a trim, to make collecting their fruit later an easier task if for no other reason, and he was certain that, while half the trees in the garden were almost dead, they could be rejuvenated over the course of a few years, given some attention. And he’d have a much easier time leaving the house if they cleared a path to the front gates, rather than having to leave by that damned back passage every time.

Presently, he said, “The garden is looking awful wild at present.”

Madeline was sitting across from him, slowly turning through the pages of yet another book. He looked up, and said, “It is.”

“And do you intend to do anything about it?”

“No.”

“Only, it would be much improved with some work. I should like to been myself, but I am not as young as I once was, and I shall need you and Cosette on board in order to begin anything.”

 

Valjean was taken aback. The garden, to him, was primarily a shield against curious eyes, a misdirection employed so that no-one could tell the house was inhabited.

Since leaving the convent, he had felt much of his old anxiety flood back. It seemed to him that every passer-by in the street, every shopkeeper, every fellow lodger in their temporarily-rented rooms was Javert, or employed by Javert as an informant. Moving to Rue Plumet had alleviated these fears — after all, almost nobody but he, Cosette, Fauchelevent, and their servant Toussaint knew they lived there.

To tame the garden would be to signal residence. Everyone passing by their house — admittedly, this was very few people — would know it was inhabited. Despite his other houses, to which he knew he could flee if Javert got wind of his whereabouts, and in which he had already stayed for a few days in order to reduce his presence at Rue Plumet, he knew this would mean the loss of one of his safeguards.

But did he really need to hide so absolutely?

 

Fauchelevent continued, “I have seen Cosette pull the weeds — or, what she thinks are weeds — nonetheless, I have seen her weed the stones in the path in imitation of her Papa. And I have seen your collection of books. Every second one appears to be a gardeners’ handbook of some kind.

Madeline nodded cautiously.

“Now, it would seem to me that as you do not work, and are not in need of work, tending to the garden would not rob you of valuable time you would otherwise spend on earning money. It would grant me, and I dare say Cosette and you as well, Madeline, a great deal of pleasure to have a beautiful garden once more. Perhaps some clematis up the front of the house, instead of or alongside the ivy. And we can grow fruit and vegetables; it would be instructional to Cosette, and reduce the cost of our own food greatly.”

“That is true. I had hoped, though, to keep the garden wild for Cosette to explore…”

“Then we shall plant only close to the house, and alongside the path so I can reach the gates.” Fauchelevent said decisively. “It shall be easier for me to reach, anyhow!”

 

Valjean nodded cautiously. Nobody would see up to the walls; a set of vegetable plots could easily be concealed from the road. And if he repaved the path to wind through the trees, instead of straight up to the door…

“We shall go to the market tomorrow, to buy seeds and plants.”

Fauchelevent smiled.

 

* * *

Four days later, and Fauchelevent pulled himself out of bed and outside with some difficulty, for his joints were aching and it seemed that his cane sunk into the ground with every second step. However, Cosette’s enthusiasm alone more than made up for anything — as he sat down slowly on the bench near the small plot Valjean had cleared over the past two days, she came racing up to him, a grin on her face and a tiny rose bush in her arms.

“Look, Uncle!” she beamed, setting the plant down next to him, and pointing out its feathery new leaves. “Papa has said it may flower this year, with care, and if I give it poles to support itself, it will grow all the way up to the top of them!”

Fauchelevent smiled in return. “It is a fine plant! Did you select it yourself?”

“While you were looking at the tomatoes, yes. I asked the lady at the stall for a flower, and she told me tat if Papa helps, the rose should last years and years.”

“A wonderful choice,” said Madeline, who had appeared (seemingly from nowhere) behind them. He wore a hat with a large, floppy brim, and a wilted-looking dandelion pushed through the hat band, and was holding two spades and a rake. Madeline handed the gardening implements to Fauchelevent, who leaned them against the bench.

“Now,” said Madeline to Cosette, “before we can get started with planting, we must ensure that the ground is prepared.”

“Did you not already prepare it?” Cosette asked, confused.

“I did, but do you see the tiny plants growing in the earth?”

Cosette nodded.

“Nature works fast. You saw me clearing the ground two days ago, and already she has begun covering it once again. If our plants are to take root undisturbed, we must first turn the soil. This will uproot and bury the weeds, and they shall not be able to grow.”

“And there will be more room for our plants.” Cosette said.

“Exactly!”

Madeline took the rake from the bench, and showed Cosette what to do, letting her finish the plot herself. Over the course of the morning, Fauchelevent watched them set up beanpoles, dig holes for seeds — sunflowers, beans, beetroots, carrots, lettuce, and nasturtiums — and for tiny strawberry and blueberry bushes. Madeline explained as he went, with interjections and additions from Fauchelevent, how the plants helped each other to grow: strawberries and blueberries grew well together, and furthermore the strawberries would help the lettuce as well, for example.

And in the afternoon, Cosette pushed a seed into each hole, covering it with soil and sprinkling with water, stopping often to run off and find interesting insects, while Madeline planted the strawberries and blueberries. By the time the sun set, the plots looked almost as bare as before, dark rectangles amongst the grass and vines, but with a promise of new life buried underneath.

 

* * *

 

Cosette ran in from the garden, mud on her bare feet and her hair in tangles, with news: the beans had begun to sprout. Fauchelevent and Madeline followed her out to look at them. It was a cloudy morning, and still quite dark. The ground, as evidenced by Cosette’s footsteps all over the kitchen, was wet after a rainy night.

Once at the vegetable beds, Fauchelevent knelt down to inspect the beans. Around half of the seeds had put out two tiny leaves, and upon closer inspection of the flower beds, several of the other plants had done the same.

Fauchelevent turned to smile at Valjean. As he watched, Valjean smiled back, and, to Fauchelevent, it felt like the sun had come out.


End file.
